Of Willows and Wiles
by AmazingGraceless
Summary: Emma Vanity gets injured investigating the Whomping Willow for the school newspaper and must be rescued. Unfortunately, that's not really in her nature. Prequel one-shot to "The Sleeping Dragon Chronicler."


**AN: For QFL. 1,071 words. Prompt: "**Department of Magical Accidents and Catastrophes: Write about someone getting injured"

* * *

When Emma Vanity signed up for the _Sleeping Dragon Chronicler_, Hogwarts' school newspaper, she hadn't expected this. Really, she should have— her very first year on the paper ended with the staff huddled in the newsroom, waiting for cursed ice to envelope them all, but nothing that drastic had happened since then.

Well, besides boggarts, werewolves, the invasion of that hack, Rita Skeeter—

Okay, Emma should have expected a broken leg at some point during her journalistic career.

She was supposed to be investigating the origins of the Whomping Willow. Andrew Snowy-Owl, one of the other reporters that was recently put in charge of hosting the radio program of the _Chronicler_, had brought up at the last staff meeting that records showed that the Whomping Willow had been planted in 1971. For the way the professors spoke about how the Willow was such an old piece of Hogwarts History, it surprised all of the staff to discover that it was merely eighteen years old.

Emma was never one to back down from a challenge, so she of course agreed that she would look into it. And part of being a reporter was actually coming and looking at whatever needed to be investigated.

Emma's sharp green eyes had honed in on it immediately— the hole in the roots. It was big enough for four teenage boys to slip through, if she had to guess. Where did it go? What was the Willow hiding?

Emma had tried to dart through, using her Quidditch reflexes— she was the only girl who had survived three years on the Slytherin Quidditch team— but even they had failed her in the end.

All she remembered was that her vision went red, and then she was flying in the air. Safely a few good yards away from demonic tree, Emma had tried to get to her feet. But couldn't. In a few seconds, numbness turned to throbbing pain.

"Merlin's pants!" Emma cried, and she tried to look at her leg, only to see it was bent at an angle. Her stomach turned, but she held true— just a little paler than she was before.

She reached for her wand, and sent up a few red sparks. It was a signal flare her father taught her during the time they went camping in the Scottish highlands. As they hovered there, she realized that someone would have to see them and know what they meant. And at a worst case scenario, the _Chronicler_ staff would eventually come looking for her.

But as relief of the probability of being found set in, Emma groaned, and not just for the pain in her leg, either.

Being passive was definitely not in her nature, she decided. She wanted to do something, anything. Not sit here and wait for someone else.

_What was the spell for fixing broken bones again_, she wondered.

Of course when she actually needed it, and not because of her O.W.L.s or W.O.M.B.A.T.s, she couldn't remember it. She knew it started with a vowel— "a" or "e", she was certain of that—

Emma tried to inch away further from the Whomping Willow, but her leg hurt so much, she immediately had to stop. Besides, she could hear her father's advice when using the flare in her ears.

"_Stay where you are— if someone sees those sparks and not the person who cast it, they'll think something bad happened to you, and they can't get you back."_

She groaned again, lying back on her propped-up elbows, her dark ponytail falling against the grass. She felt too still, confined in her own skin.

"What's the use of magic if you can't even fix a broken bone?" It was delightfully mundane, ridiculous in the face of the great things she was supposed to use magic for one day, if you believed what all of the other Slytherins said. Well, not about her because of her muggle mother, but who counted them?

"I don't know."

She sat up straighter, recognizing the voice. It was Andrew, his Veela-white hair shining brilliantly in the autumn sun.

"Finally," she said. "What took you so long?"

"I didn't know you'd come down here," he said, dropping down by her side. "Just had a feeling, y'know?"

Her heart hammered at her chest. Her life was ruled by logic and ambitions, not just feelings and whatever was causing her heart to pick up the beat.

Never mind that Andrew Snowy-Owl was a very pretty boy— and not just because of his Veela mother, she decided.

_Stop that, Emma_, she told herself. _Focus_.

"So, what happened?" He asked, somehow sensing she was uncomfortable— while being completely oblivious to the source.

"Whomping Willow threw me," she said. "Broke my leg. Pity, too— I was in the middle of something big."

"Tell me." His brown eyes were wide, as if he could take in the words straight from her mind.

"Found this hole in the roots— some kind of passageway, I think," Emma said. "I was trying to get to it, but then the Willow—"

"Whomped you," Andrew finished. "I don't think anyone's getting to that passageway, though."

"I don't think so either," Emma reluctantly agreed. "Look, I'd rather have this chat in the newsroom. Do you remember the spell for fixing broken bones?"

"Yes, right!" He pulled his wand out of a special pocket he had sewn into his emerald green sweater from Madam Malkin's. "_Episkey."_

It burned for a second, and Emma gasped, her skin and bones knitting itself back together. With a satisfying _click_ relief drained out of her body, and she was no longer in pain.

"Can you stand?"

Eager to prove that point, and not wanting him to see her blush, feel her racing heart, she stood up— only to stumble briefly into his arms.

_Like this day couldn't get any worse, _she thought to herself. _Why don't I just join the Department of Catastrophes and Magical Accidents already?_

She looked up, about to say some snarky comment— when he kissed her.

And she liked it. Clumsy it might have been, but that wasn't what mattered. She wasn't experienced anyway.

When she pulled away, she only had one question. "Does this make me your mate in some Veela ritual or—"

Andrew rolled his eyes and kissed her again.

For once she didn't mind shutting up.


End file.
